The particulars could have come from a college fraternity boy. Finding those carousels of slides, in September 2015, may have been a fluke, but it felt like a providential sign. Only one of her siblings, a brother, is still alive. There, next to his kitchen near the village of Mahomet, 140 miles south of Chicago, the lost women flickered back to life. 30 Strange And Bizarre Facts About Richard Speck "She found the thing she loved doing, she meets a guy that she says 'yes' to about being married," he said. Later she learned that Speck, responding to the bell, had forced two of his hostages downstairs, a gun at their backs. Not long afterward, Arline Davy, sitting on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest, made an announcement to her daughters. One of them, Corazon Amurao, steered him to the front door. He pulled it out recently as he talked for the first time publicly about the sister he lost when he was 15. Student nurses Suzanne Farris, left, and Mary Ann Jordan are shown in their townhouse,circa 1966. They are young and together and happy. The last time John Farris saw Suzie, 21, he had just come home from a track meet, carrying his victory medals, and she was visiting with her boyfriend, Phil. She promptly planned a trip to the United States, but passport problems twice forced her to postpone. By the time he left, around 3:30 a.m., eight women were dead, some stabbed, some strangled, some both. Mary Ann brought her Irish humor, her sense of duty and her talent for friendship to nursing school and to the townhouse on East 100th Street. The old hospital is now called Advocate Trinity. Girl Scout. Now, with the 50th anniversary of the massacre by Speck approaching, we are recuing our report on the compelling interview with the sole survivor of this grisly attack. All Rights Reserved. Theyre smiling and wearing regular clothes. The two were destined to be roommates in a townhouse on Chicago's South Side. Martin and Atienza kept in contact as Martin collaborated with author Dennis Breo, updating the book "Crime of the Century," about the Speck murder case. Nursing students were under strict rules during the 1960s, but still they found time for fun. Corazon Amurao, center, the nurse who survived the massacre of eight of her fellow student nurses, walks between another nurse and William Ruddel, Bridewell jail superintendent, from Bridewell's Cermak Memorial Hospital after a second visit to the building where Richard Speck was being held on July 19, 1966. Name: Richard Speck Birth Year: 1941 Birth date: December 6, 1941 Birth State: Illinois Birth City: Kirkwood Birth Country: United States Gender: Male Best Known For: In 1966, Richard Speck. She married Alberto Atienza, and then, with her husband, a lawyer, moved back to the United States. Susan is 3. They could talk about the wedding. "You are surprised I survived?" Pat lived above Joe Matusek's Club, the tavern her father ran in the 10800 block of South Michigan Avenue. After the trial, she went home to the Philippines, got a job as a nurse and was elected to the town council in her hometown of San Luis. I don`t know why it happened to me. From left are Mary Ann Jordan, Judith Dykton, in cap, Suzanne Farris, Nina Jo Schmale, an unidentified woman and Pamela Wilkening, seated. "For Filipinos and Filipino Americans who came of age during the 1960s," she said in a recent email, "I think Gargullo and Pasion are remembered as nurses who encountered American violence and tragedy, and Amurao is remembered as the nurse who used her wits to survive.". (Schmale family ). In November 1962, Speck married Shirley Malone, and they had a daughter, Bobby Lynn, soon after. I`m freakish.''. A lanky man in dark clothes, with slicked-back hair and marks on his face, was standing there with a small black revolver in his right hand. On many of those days she walked home crying, yet it was her afternoons with Tommy that made her think she could be a nurse. In that small room, with its linoleum floor and overhead light, Suzie taught him how to make a grilled cheese sandwich and how, if you mixed sour cream and dry onion soup mix, presto, you had French onion dip. In one photo that captures her impish side, she's tucked in bed with a housemate, the covers pulled to her chin, her hair in a shower cap. During the summers she accompanied Billy to nearby Rainbow Beach, splashed with him in the water, hugged him a lot, made him laugh, a boisterous laugh he copied from her. After graduating from Far Eastern University in Manila, she worked for a couple of years as a staff nurse, then applied for work in the United States. (Harold Norman / Chicago Tribune). Chicago Tribune's Mary Schmich contributed. Bill Kurtis obtained the tape through an anonymous lawyer, his production company paid 5K for it back in the 90's. Where Is Acquitted Murderer Candy Montgomery Now? ", "But work is easier than in the Philippine Islands," she continued, "only the patients are as big as water buffalo.". He had no doubt. News item: Another Speck parole hearing at Stateville Correctional Center. So eight people got killed. Unlike several of her housemates, she wasn't likely to be caught on camera dressing up in a cat costume, joking around in the kitchen, dancing. Fifty years later, Pat Matusek's two best childhood friends are the primary custodians of her past. Gloria Davy jokes around in the South Side townhouse that was used as a dormitory for student nurses from South Chicago Community Hospital, circa 1966. Pam had been quiet, studious and decisive since she was a girl in south suburban Lansing. Gloria Davy jokes around in the South Side townhouse that was used as a dormitory for student nurses from South Chicago Community Hospital, circa 1966. What about the notorious ''Born to Raise Hell'' tattoo that led to his capture? Thats why he and his wife established the Nina Jo Schmale Scholarship Fund at Wheaton College; Ninas name, and hers alone, is now attached to something good. Phil taught public school, had a sailboat and was nice to him, the kid brother. In the townhouse, she was known to sing while doing the dishes or the laundry. My mother had an appointment for me at Parkland Hospital, the same place where Kennedy ended up dying. What he had, in this mysterious box he had inherited when his father died, were four carousels of slides, many of them corroded, warped, moldy, ravaged by water and time. In winter they went sledding. Atienza became friends and learned to play penny-ante poker with the policemen and bodyguards who watched over her for an entire year while she was in protective custody. Attorney William J. Martin, 79, talks about Corazon Amurao Atienza, the lone survivor of the Richard Speck murders. "I really don't know how to break the news of Tina's death to our parents," one of her sisters sobbed when word reached the Philippines. (Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune). Speck was captured two days later when an emergency room doctor at Cook County Hospital thought a patient he was treating for self-inflicted gashes looked familiar. Their mother, of English and Czech stock, stayed at home to take care of her children. A Tribune freelancer in the Philippines had no success either, and reported that the Philippine Nurses Association in Manila had no contact information for their families. You're afraid in life, and here's someone who is comforting you.''. But she came with a coveted distinction: She had a car, and not just any car, a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible in pale yellow "Colonial Cream," a gift from her father, who could barely afford it and who himself drove a run-down pickup truck. Phil was also the brother of one of Suzie's classmates, Mary Ann Jordan, who had lived in the townhouse for a while, then moved back home. Jewelry, makeup and nail polish were forbidden on duty. He told me that he drank moonshine and took barbiturates in his prison cell. 'Mindhunter': The True Stories Behind The Show's Killers And Profilers Abigail Atienza followed in her mother's footsteps and became a nurse practitioner, and Christian is a certified public accountant. (Chris J. Walker / Chicago Tribune). In 1991, while still in prison, Speck died of a heart attack. Like others Schmale has contacted, she was wary at first of resurrecting the past, but she has felt some relief in it. Kubasek recalled one day not long ago, sitting with her old friend Arlene Baskys. Phil was engaged to one of Mary Ann's classmates, Suzanne Farris, who still lived in the townhouse, and Suzanne was with him that evening. "I just would have liked her to see the kids," he said, and he cried. His mother filed them away neatly, along with the pictures and newspaper clippings. In one of the slides that her brother recovered from the basement, a young man crouches next to the Bel Air, washing the whitewalls, smiling for the camera. In 1966, Richard Speck committed one of the most horrifying mass murders in American history when he brutalized and killed eight student nurses living on Chicago's South Side. 8 Dead Nurses In One Night: The Horrible Story Of Richard Speck But any kid can end up just like me.'' When. Richard Speck | American murderer | Britannica Look at her. In the townhouse's unofficial sorority, Pam was the quiet one. She helped raise eight younger siblings, swam in the river and was good enough in school to be admitted to the nursing program at Arellano University in the big city of Manila. Despite fears that Cora, in one doctor's words, would "lapse into a psychosis" and never be able to discuss the murders, she testified boldly at Speck's trial. News item: Richard Speck sentenced. Pat asked. The True Story Behind Netflix's Mindhunter - Men's Health (Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune). And it turned out that it reopened her life. I`m not a violent man.''. Richard Speck has been described as a drifter, a loner, a high school dropout, a sociopath, a heavy drinker, a violent man who could be charming. Amurao had arrived the previous day to identify the killer in person, but Speck was not well enough. The children suffered considerable abuse at the hands of their drunken stepfather, and Speck's childhood was marked by juvenile delinquency and alcohol abuse, which soon led to petty crime. Speck was the seventh of eight children. Atienza visits the Philippines every three years to see relatives. Speck's jury trial began April 3, 1967, in Peoria, Illinois, three hours southwest of Chicago, with a gag order on the press. If you asked Mary Ann where she was from, she'd give a classic South Side answer, naming not her neighborhood but her parish, Our Lady of Peace. (Farris family). From the transcript of Speck's trial: Q: How long did you scream, in a sitting position, with the window open? After she married and had three children, she told her kids that Aunt Gloria had died in a car crash. Would Kubasek go with her to the townhouse to get Pat's nursing cap and uniform? Richard Speck attack survivor: 'Somebody up there was hiding me from I`d never shot heroin before. It will be available May 10. What the camera couldn't catch were the girl's thoughts, the confusion she felt at the spectacle of all these other graduates. He could be seen doing what appeared to be cocaine and in an interview-like discussion he answered questions about the murders of the nurses . And Carol Burnett. Richard Speck, in full Richard Benjamin Speck, (born December 6, 1941, Kirkwood, Illinois, U.S.died December 5, 1991, Joliet), American mass murderer known for killing eight female nursing students in a Chicago town house in 1966. In the basement's dim overhead light, a big, brown cardboard box caught his eye, a box so soggy its bottom was ready to fall out. Speck died of a heart attack after 25 years in prison. She started college as an English major at Northern Illinois University, then switched to nursing. Come spend the night, Suzie suggested. That is no comfort to the families of his victims. Despite the horror of what happened, Atienza carries warm memories of her friends, Martin said. Some bunk beds, some singles. Be married, divorced, retired? Not violent? The kitchen door opened onto a narrow alley where Nina parked her Bel Air and where a hospital shuttle picked up and delivered students. Kubasek said no. No scuffs were allowed on their white saddle shoes. She closed the box, surely hoping that one day it would be opened. ''I`m in here for 1,200 years. The eight nurses killed by Richard Speck on July 14, 1966, in Chicago were, top from left, Gloria Davy, Suzanne Farris, Merlita Gargullo and Mary Ann Jordan. It was Wednesday, July 13, shortly after 11 p.m. Richard Speck was already upstairs. He had never met the women he was about to kill. The murders continue to have a profound impact on American crime and American society, Martin said. Except, Speck doesn't see himself as an evil person. A few years ago, he ran into an old family friend and she told him a story he'd never heard, about how when she was in high school and couldn't afford a prom dress, Suzie made her one. Dykton and the unidentified woman were not killed by Richard Speck. Richard Speck was a murderer notorious for killing eight student nurses in 1966. William Martin was the lead prosecutor for Speck's trial. Speck was never officially charged with the murders of which he was suspected prior to the events that took place in the South Chicago townhouse and, officially, those cases remain unsolved. Jordan Morin, who was 15 when Mary Ann died, has never before spoken publicly about her sister's death, and she doesn't talk easily about it now. .css-m6thd4{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;display:block;margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;font-family:Gilroy,Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.2;font-weight:bold;color:#323232;text-transform:capitalize;}@media (any-hover: hover){.css-m6thd4:hover{color:link-hover;}}G. Gordon Liddys Wild Career After Watergate. Always a quiet woman, she grew quieter. This important Mindhunter moment didn't happen in real life - Digital Spy 29. Richard Speck had a troubled past and a rap sheet a mile long. At age 10, she walked her sister Susan to her first day of kindergarten. They`ll never mess with nobody else.''. Speck then rounded the nurses up and ordered them to empty their purses, before tying them all up. Biography and associated logos are trademarks of A+E Networksprotected in the US and other countries around the globe. (Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune). She appreciates every day of life and wants to be happy all the time, because life is not long, Martin said she told him recently. The Matuseks wanted Pat to be buried in the clothes she would have worn for her upcoming graduation, so on the day after the murders, Pat's sister, Betty Jo, asked Kubasek for a favor. By July of 1966, however, Mary Ann, 20, had moved out of the townhouse and back into the family bungalow. So do their lives. She worked at the hospital from 7 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. Like the other Filipina nurses, she sent money home. On the 50th anniversary of the murders, he remembers Corazon's bravery in court. His little sister. He was sentenced to death, but the sentence was later overturned due to issues with jury selection at his trial. He spent a few days there before traveling to Monmouth, Illinois, where he stayed with some family friends from his early childhood. Richard Speck captured the nation's attention during the summer of 1966 after murdering eight female students who lived together on Chicago's South Side. Atienza was one of three Filipina exchange nurses who lived there, too, and worked at the hospital. (Chicago Tribune historical photo / Chicago Tribune). Among Pam's favorite pleasures was watching Jack, who was seven years older, race cars. (Schmale family ). Many, like Schmale, have boxes of photos and mementos they've never opened. The trial lasted just 12 days and, on April 15, 1967, the jury found Speck guilty of all eight murders, after less than an hour's deliberation. A couple of days after his basement flooded, John Schmale finally mustered the energy to head downstairs and investigate the damage. Student nurses Patricia Matusek, left, and Suzanne Farris, circa 1966. The police arrived to scenes of carnage, and took Amurao into custody, interviewing her and proceeding with the construction of an Identikit image. Bottom row from left are Patricia Matusek, Valentina Pasion, Nina Jo Schmale and Pamela Wilkening. They were excited. He killed more than eight people., Lori Davy Sivek remembers her sister Gloria Davy, one of eight student nurses and nurses murdered together 50years ago on Chicago'sSouth Side. They opened the door. Mindhunter: The True Story of FBI Agent John E. Douglas - People Eight thousand miles from home, they could earn decent money and many, like Tina, sent much of it back to their families. The police didn't rush them, but they left as fast as they could. Repacking it. Meanwhile, the women he murdered were relegated to the role of victims, their names largely forgotten except by the people who loved them and cannot forget. She also wrote about Chicago's weather, which she described in one letter as "really terrible. Jack Wilkening is 79 now, retired from his job as a Standard Oil cashier. The following stories, accompanied by Schmale's photos and a few others, are a glimpse of who they were and how their deaths have marked the people who remain to remember them. She has looked at the Facebook page Schmale started as part of the commemoration for the nurses, a place for trading stories and photos, though she doesn't linger. Forty miles from home, when they spotted a gas station, they were reluctant to stop for directions because their curlers made them look like creatures from Mars. There's no question that Richard Speck lived a very troubled life from an early age. John Farris carries a photo of his sister Suzie in his wallet. Indiana authorities wanted to interview Speck regarding the murder of three girls who had vanished on July 2, 1966, and whose bodies were never found. They'd see each other Friday, go hang out on Rush Street on the Gold Coast. He thinks about the family she might have had, wishes she could have met his two sons and daughter and eight grandchildren. Sitting in her Naperville home, she sobbed. The doctor had just had a. He was referring to letters he received in his prison cell every week from women-female admirers who, he said, wanted to correspond with him. On a trip to Florida with her classmates not long before she died, she sent a postcard home to report that immediately after their plane landed, they had gone to Mass. Next door was a funeral home, run by Arlene Baskys' dad. Childhood friends of Patricia Matusek share memories with Matuseks niece, who never met her. Girls, we need to clean the house.". Richard Speck Serial Killer Documentary - YouTube So you could say that from the beginning, Richard, Speck's life was stained with violence even after the war was over. He plays a lot of solitaire. ''Just tell `em to keep up their hatred for me,'' Speck said. Mary Ann Jordanin her nursing uniform in an undated photo. The United States needed nurses, and Filipinas helped relieve the shortage. It took Nina a while to choose nurse. The End of Richard Speck: Cora Amurao, dressed as a nurse, entered Speck's hospital room and identified him to police as the killer. Tammy Siouchoff remembers life with her fellow students before six of them and two visiting nurseswere murdered in a neighboring townhouse on Chicago's South Side in 1966. But whatever the veracity of his account of that murderous night (''It was just one of them weird coincidences. Student nurses Suzanne Farris, left, and Mary Ann Jordan are shown in their townhouse,circa 1966. And it hasn't stopped since. On July 13, 1966, Speck unleashed his terror on Chicago by breaking into a building in the neighborhood of South Deering. Mary Ann Jordan grew up hearing her father's tales of her Irish grandmother, Grace. These days, Farris is retired from his job as an administrative services manager at the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Chicago. "Gloria's been murdered," Lori remembers her saying. I asked him if he wasn`t afraid of getting in trouble for talking about the contraband he kept in his cell. Pat was born in 1945, the year World War II ended, to Joe and Bessie Matusek, both of Czech descent. Murder made Richard Speck famous. ''I stay up at night as long as it takes me to fall asleep or pass out from the hooch or from whatever we have at the time.''. She did, however, like her volunteer job at an elder-care facility known as the poor farm, and she made friends with her patients, even brought them Christmas presents. Inside sat four square, off-white boxes labeled "Kodak," and on top of them lay a sheet of thin pink paper. Cook County Assistant States Attorney William Martin, left, watches as witness Corazon Amurao uses a scale model of the townhouse crime scene to detail the murder of eight nurses by Richard Speck, center background, during Specks 1966 trial in Peoria, Ill. Pamela Wilkening, left, Mary Ann Jordan, right, and Suzanne Farris, second from right, are shown with other student nurses having fun with a South Chicago Community Hospital School of Nursing banner, circa 1966. When their bodies were flown back to Manila, however, more than 100 people relatives and friends waited in the rain to watch their caskets unloaded from an airliner and hefted into funeral coaches. Speck is the character who, while being interviewed by Ford and Tench, tosses a pet bird into a fan. Photo: Bettmann / Contributor / Getty Images, G. Gordon Liddys Wild Career After Watergate, Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads, Name: Richard Speck, Birth Year: 1941, Birth date: December 6, 1941, Birth State: Illinois, Birth City: Kirkwood, Birth Country: United States. Cora the first of the residents to see Richard Speck that night, and the only one to survive unlocked it. He has never discussed it with them in depth or with his sister Marilyn, who has moved away from Chicago. Chicago was chilly, with a trace of snow, on May 9, 1966, when Tina's plane landed hardly the steamy weather she had known in Jones, a town 240 miles from Manila, where she grew up with five siblings. It's a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible painted in Colonial Cream. In the bedroom she shared with Cora Amurao, Merlita slept on the bottom bunk. "He is not going to harm you," the voice said. In 1972, Speck's death sentence was commuted to 50 to 100 years in prison, when the U.S. Supreme Court abolished capital punishment. In their tightknit neighborhood, Pat and her friends stood on corners during the fall to help her dad sell peanuts for the Kiwanis Club. She was too hot. Wilkening has had a full life, but he doesn't pretend the pain is gone or that his life ever returned to a true version of normal. Michigan authorities also wanted to question him about his whereabouts during the murder of four other females, aged between 7 and 60, as his ship had been in the vicinity at the time. Tammy Siouchoff remembers life with her fellow students before six of them and two visiting nurseswere murdered in a neighboring townhouse on Chicago's South Side in 1966. Although she declined to be interviewed for this story, she has exchanged emails recently with John Schmale. On some summer days, because it gives him a warm feeling he can't entirely explain, he drives around, top down, in a car he bought a few years ago. God was so nice," she said in an email to Martin. Who Is Suspected Pentagon Leaker Jack Teixeira? He has found another way as well to hang on to his sister's hopeful spirit. Like Schmale, she talks about opening the box of her sister's life, and now that it's open she thinks, "Wow, wow, this was my sister. On Aug. 7, 1966, when Lori Davy, 11, walked across the stage to accept her sister's diploma, her father's orders were fresh in her mind. "It was almost like he had five boys," said Lori Davy Sivek, who is now 61 and teaches eighth-grade science and technology in a Houston suburb. (Schmale family). Richard Speck - Video, Tattoo & Daughter Speck, however, seemed to have a knack for making a quick escape and keeping police forces guessing. One of her sisters would later say the delay may have been a sign that "God didn't want her to leave.". After his killing spree in 1966, a manhunt ensued and he was captured two days later. Baskys says that for a while she slept with a flashlight or a knife, but eventually, determined not to raise her children in fear, went through five years of therapy to retrain her thinking. When her father was at work and her mother was taking care of the house and Billy, she took Susan along while she ran family errands on 79th Street, where the shopkeepers knew her name. When he left, hours later, taking the money he had stolen, she cowered in her hiding place, terrified, for hours, before finally summoning the courage to seek help. The Details of Mass Murderer Richard Speck | Oxygen - YouTube In this interview, Speck confessed to the murders for the first time publicly and said he thought he would get out of prison "between now and the year 2000", at which time he hoped to run his own grocery store business. At her father's urging, Lori considered becoming a nurse, but she finally told him that she couldn't, she was just too emotional for the job. Pat and Arlene Kubasek could hardly stop laughing on the night, during their high school sophomore year, that they went to the drive-in with four other girls, then sat in the car eating popcorn and rolling their hair on giant curlers. After his father died, his mother married an abusive alcoholic who savagely abused Speck and his seven siblings. Subsequent nationwide enquiries also raised the other incidents in which Speck was suspected, as well as his criminal record. (Schmale family ). "It was him," she said. Martin and Atienza kept in contact as Martin collaborated with author Dennis Breo, updating the book "Crime of the Century," about the Speck murder case. I watch her comedy show. Dr. John Schmale found a box of old slides in his waterlogged basement and opened a flood of memories. It was the early 1960s, before the flowering of the women's liberation movement, an era when it wasn't assumed that women would leave the house to work, and those who did had few choices. With whom? Secretary. Not only had they been allowed a slumber party with their mother, but their big sister who was about to graduate from nursing school was coming home for good the next day. I wanted to get rid of it. Teacher. After the murders, the nursing students in the nearby townhouses moved back into the dorms connected to the hospital. Many fans can agree that the interview with Richard Speck was high in terms of tension. "What she did that night, very few human beings would have the courage to do. Why were they here, and her sister wasn't? Law- enforcement officials familiar with the 1966 mass murder said there was no chance an accomplice existed. Dr. John Schmale found a box of old slides in his waterlogged basement and opened a flood of memories. Him and Eastwood and Bronson. The body count was so high that he failed to notice that Amurao, who had opened the door for him on his arrival, had managed to hide herself under one of the beds. her daughter asked. It hurt to see Nina in her yellow swimsuit he thought back to the Life magazine photo after the murders that showed it hanging on a rod in her bedroom but it also made him glad, glad to be reminded of who his sister was before death defined her. Richard Benjamin Speck (December 6, 1941 - December 5, 1991) was an American mass murderer who systematically tortured, raped, and murdered eight student nurses from South Chicago Community Hospital on July 13, 1966.